A year before the Hillsborough tragedy of 1989, the nadir of English football’s fortunes, the original New Times debate mapped precisely the forces that would transform this venerable but declining working-class game into the global commercial spectacular that is the Premier League. The new communications technologies and their global reach would be shaped by private rather than public interests (privately owned clubs, not the Football Association) and by the market, not the state (Sky rather than the BBC).
That debate also recognised the relentless individualistic consumerism that has driven the continuing success of sport in Britain: we now have record levels of gym membership, buy more sports goods than before, and watch more sport on ever more devices. If newspapers and internet chat rooms are anything to go by, we read more and talk more about sport than we used to. The New Year honours lists suggest we accord it ever more social weight.
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